Medway RFC U17s

28 January 2007

Both sides were without their county players - seven in Medway's case - so it was a chance for the squad players to shine and they did.

The game was strongly influenced by a stiff wind blowing down the sloped pitch, but it was evenly matched and Medway won out through a determined team effort. Stitch put in another strong performance at prop, Jimmy Darling added some welcome feistiness and aggression in the forwards, and Tom in his first full game at outside centre gave his best performance of the season.

Joe scores the first

Facing down the slope in the first half, it took a few minutes for the Medway side to settle, but it wasn't long before they started to dominate Barking territory. Jiffy won some loose ball on the Barking 10-metre line, James spun a fine miss pass to Tom , whose perfectly timed feed put Joe Davies into the corner on his debut.

For the next 15 minutes the game was a scrappy affair, breaking down into a series of rucks and mauls with little threat at either end. Medway's next score was typical of the play in fact, as Barking, in possession of the ball, attempted to drive a maul off their own goal line. The Medway pack drove them back into the in-goal, and then James T intervened, ripping the ball out of Barking hands and dropping to the ground to score. Paul converted and Medway were 12 - 0 ahead.

It was 19 - 0 less than two minutes later as the re-start was controlled and then fed quickly along the Medway 22-metre line to TJ who raced 60 metres to touch down between the posts. Paul again converted.

The question at half-time was whether Medway' lead was enough, now that Barking had the pitch and weather on their side. The answer was: just!

TJ slides in for the third

Barking dominated Medway territory in the second half. Their rucking produced controlled possession which they used sometimes to drive with their forwards and sometimes to spread the ball wide and stretch the Medway defence. Within ten minutes they had scored a try in the corner, but missed the conversion.

Five minutes later they kicked a penalty to make the score 19 - 8, and shortly after scored another try when their wing took a loose ball and cut inside. It was now 19 - 13 and Medway had to dig in to prevent further damage. The home side made few threats on the Barking goal line, but fierce tackling from Stitch, TJ, Brooksy and Snap prevented any further scare at the other end, and Medway emerged winners in a tight match.